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As the director of CFA Institute Asia-Pacific Research Exchange I am responsible advocating the platform to CFA members and relevant stakeholders; managing relationships and thought leadership contributions from universities, institutions and regulators; organizing forums and symposiums across the region.

The Financial Services Development Council (FSDC) released an updated version of the “Overview of Hong Kong Financial Services Industry” in May 2018 which aims to facilitate industry practitioners and the wider public to understand and promote the strengths of Hong Kong as an international financial centre. The report covers the below sessions:

Why Hong Kong?
Being one of the world's most competitive and freest economy, Hong Kong possesses advantages like the strategic location and gateway to Mainland China, key conduit for investment and trade linked exchange rate system, bilingual legal system and simple tax regime, deep pool of talent and centre of expertise.

Asset and Wealth Management
As the leading fund management centre in Asia Hong Kong has a diversified distribution of fund management and advisory business, an active ETF market and a sizable pension fund market. The soon-to-be-introduced open-ended fund companies structure will further promote Hong Kong as the Asian asset management centre for both conventional funds and PE funds.

Banking
Hong Kong has a robust banking industry by international standards and is regarded as the global offshore RMB hub. The Hong Kong Government is exploring with the Mainland authorities ways to open up more channels for two-way cross-border RMB fund flows.

Capital Markets
With HKEX being the leading stock exchange in fundraising (2015-2017) and diversified listed companies and investors, Hong Kong is looking to increase connectivity with Mainland investors and the Mainland market.

InsuranceHong Kong ranks 1st in Asia in insurance density and 2nd in Asia in insurance penetration in 2016. Government has recently taken a number of initiatives to promote the insurance sector which includes the establishment of insurance authority, HK$100mn 3-year pilot programme for talent development and the adoption of FinTech on the development of personalized products.

Fintech and Green FinanceFinTech cooperation agreements signed with partners such as Australia, Dubai, Gibraltar, Singapore, Switzerland and the UK. On the other hand, HKMA, Cyberport in Hong Kong and the the Office of Financial Development Service of Shenzhen (OFDS) are exploring the feasibility of establishing cross-border soft-landing facilities in Shenzhen, encouraging Hong Kong FinTech firms to expand their businesses, and Mainland firms to establish themselves in Hong Kong.

Professional Services & Financial Infrastructure
Half of the Global 100 law firms and 1,400 regional headquarters of consultancy firms are set up in Hong Kong. With a well-established payment & settlement system and bilingual legal system, Hong Kong has the increasing prevalence of being the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) forum. Meanwhile the Belt and Road Initiative will drive significant demand in Hong Kong’s world-class professional services.

In 2017, CFA Institute and the PRI agreed to undertake an ESG investing study that entails a survey, a series of workshops and the release of four reports: one case study report and three regional reports. The aim of the study is:

to understand the current state of ESG investing in listed equity and fixed income across the AMER, EMEA and APAC regions;

The results of the study and the feedback from the workshops will be published in the regional reports. There will also be regional and country guidance and case studies on how investors are integrating ESG issues into their investment analysis and decisions. These reports will be readily available for all CFA members and PRI signatories.

The survey contains two sets of questions that should take roughly 8 – 10 minutes to complete. It covers the impact of ESG investing at the financial market level and firm level. It is being completed by participants across seventeen countries.

If you like to fill out the survey, please do so by 15 June. We appreciate your response.

The term “ESG integration” is often used when talking about ESG investing. Practitioners new to ESG investing are sometimes uncertain what ESG integration is and how it is performed—so much so that they may not realize they are already performing integration techniques informally.

One definition of ESG integration is “the explicit and systematic inclusion of ESG issues in investment analysis and investment decisions.” Put another way, ESG integration is the analysis of all material factors in investment analysis and investment decisions, including environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors.

What does that mean? It means that leading practitioners are:

analyzing financial information and ESG information;

identifying material financial factors and ESG factors;

assessing the potential impact of material financial factors and ESG factors on economic, country, sector, and company performance; and

making investment decisions that include considerations of all material factors, including ESG factors.

What does that not mean? It does not mean that

certain sectors, countries, and companies are prohibited from investing;

traditional financial factors are ignored (e.g., interest risk is still a significant part of credit analysis);

every ESG issue for every company/issuer must be assessed and valued;

every investment decision is affected by ESG issues;

major changes to your investment process are necessary; and, finally and most importantly,

As revealed in a survey conducted in Asia Pacific by CFA Institute in March, a majority (60%) of the 450-plus respondents have not had any experience investing in firms with a DCS structure, which signalled the urgency for and need to educate investors and the general public on the implications of DCS structures.

The survey, “Dual-Class Shares and the Demand for Safeguards,” revealed that respondents in the region were divided when asked whether DCS structures should be introduced to the market, with 53% opposing the introduction and 47% in favour. Regardless of their position on DCS, almost all (97%) respondents considered it necessary to enact additional safeguards if DCS structures are permitted.

Among different possible safeguards, more than 90% of respondents considered it appropriate to implement enhanced mandatory corporate governance measures as well as time- and event-based sunset provisions, such as automatic conversion of shares with super voting rights to ordinary voting rights. Specifically, 94% of respondents considered it appropriate to introduce a time-based sunset provision; among which, 91% of such respondents considered it appropriate to convert shares with super voting rights to ordinary shares within 10 years. Separately, 93% of respondents considered introducing a maximum voting differential appropriate; 63% of these respondents found a 2:1 maximum voting differential optimal.

Given most of the FinTech innovations, in particular the DLT, are developed for providing services directly to consumers, FinTech has initially been regarded as disruptive to the established financial institutions. However, a more recent development is that increasingly FinTech innovations are developed by, and in collaboration with, the well established incumbents in the financial sector. There are two very insightful reports on FinTech and DLT published by the FSDC in May 2017; which covers extensively the following areas including cybersecurity, payment and securities settlement, digital ID and KYC utility, WealthTech and InsurTech (including data analytics, automation and artificial intelligence), RegTech as well as Distributed Ledger Technology.

In December 2016 CFA Institute supported the 29th Australasian Finance and Banking Conference by sponsoring two research awards in Banking / Finance / Investment Management in Asia-Pacific markets and the winner of the first prize goes to Yeguang Chi, associate professor of Shanghai Jiaotong University SAIF.

During the event Professor Chi first illustrated the conditions of China’s stock market in terms of trading volume of retail investors and performance of mutual funds. Then he presented his research findings on how and why mutual funds and institutional investors in China outperform the market, highlighted the disadvantages retail investors possess in a considerably inefficient market and encouraged retail investors in China to consider delegate the investment decision to fund managers, trade less or to go for passive investments. Meanwhile he also urged for more disclosures on private meetings and stronger enforcement against insider trades to enhance market efficiency.

In a special report in 2010, The Economist called the resurgence of state-owned mega-enterprises, especially those in emerging economies, “Leviathan Inc.”, and warned about the dangers of the state capitalism model. Traditionally, state-owned firms have been criticized for poor governance and questionable efficiency. In fact, they may be better positioned to deal with market failures and externalities. Our findings based on publicly-listed firms in 45 countries suggest that government-controlled companies engage more in environmental issues, and this engagement does not come at a cost to shareholder value. The effect is more pronounced among firms in emerging market economies and in countries with higher energy risks. The effect is attributable to ownership stakes held directly by domestic governments, rather than to foreign state ownership or investment via sovereign wealth funds. Difference-in-differences estimates show that state-owned firms reacted more significantly to the 2009 Copenhagen Accord in improving their environmental performance. Interestingly, state-owned firms also engage more in social issues, but they do not reveal better corporate governance performance.

On 27 April, CFA Institute co-hosted a green finance forum with the Hong Kong Society of Financial Analysts and the Hong Kong Financial Services Development Council (FSDC), a high-level government advisory body that conducts policy research and industry surveys for the formulation of proposals to the Government and regulators. This is the second green finance forum organized by CFA Institute in Hong Kong, ARX’s second o2o event as well as ARX’s ESG Track maiden event. The forum attracted 140 attendees including CFA members, industry practitioners, think tanks, environmental and other NGOs.

The evening began with a keynote speech delivered by Martina Macpherson, S&P Dow Jones Indices Head of Sustainability Indices on an overview of green finance and ESG trends. Up next Mary Leung, Head of Standards and Advocacy for CFA Institute Asia Pacific led a panel discussion featuring Martina and ESG experts from PwC, HSBC and AXA Investment Managers focusing on the intrinsic value of ESG.

The PowerPoint Presentation of Martina's keynote speech can be downloaded in the attachment.

Overall the event was a great success with very positive feedbacks from both participants and panelists. The next stop for the CFA Institute Asia-Pacific Research Exchange ESG Series will take place in Singapore on the 11th May 2017.

In the period of economic transformation, China’s financial sector is facing new opportunities and challenges. How should financial institutions and those who work in the financial sector grasp the opportunities and cope with the challenges? CFA Institute together with Roland Berger Strategy Consultants and LinkedIn constructed a talent report with intention to provide financial institutions and those who work in the financial sector with a helpful reference.